Don’t Want to Run Errands? Site Lets You Outsource Them

When Leah Busque was ready to head to dinner with her husband one wintry Boston night, she realized they almost forgot about Kobe, their dog.

“We called a cab to pick us up, and we realized we were out of dog food,” Busque, 31, said. “We have a 100-pound dog, and we thought wouldn’t it be nice if there were a place we could go online, have someone get the dog food and name the price we were willing to pay?”

TaskRabbit

For months, Busque, then a software engineer at IBM, talked to her colleagues about this idea. Eventually, with some encouragement from Scott Griffith, CEO of Zipcar (and future investor in her company), she launched TaskRabbit, a website where busy people with ever-growing to-do lists outsource errands to “runners” in the neighborhood, who then bid for these tasks. The average cost of a task is $45; for $60, a runner can clean your house or assemble an IKEA bookcase and bed.

TaskRabbit (then named RunMyErrand.com) started the spring of 2009 in Boston, where Busque, founder and CEO, was living. It eventually expanded to San Francisco (where TaskRabbit is now headquartered), Los Angeles and Orange County. In May, the start-up closed a $5-million Series A fundraising round led by Shasta Ventures, in addition to $1.8 million in seed and angel funding, to help expand its presence nationally.

And while the company has a rabbit as its mascot, it’s Kobe, the 11-year-old yellow lab, who’s considered the driving force behind the company. On TaskRabbit’s website, Kobe is listed under founding members with the title Chief Inspiration Officer. Under his bio, “Marley and Me” is his favorite book and movie, and his favorite task to outsource is lugging 40-pound bags of large-breed, weight-control dog food.

We spoke with Busque to talk about what it takes to become a runner, where TaskRabbit is expanding to next and some of the most common, unusual and heartwarming tasks completed.

How many “runners” do you have working for you? We have more than 1,500 active TaskRabbits in Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Orange County. We have a huge waiting list to become a TaskRabbit in all of the active locations. We have 1,500 active but also 1,000 more on a waiting list [because of the] vetting process.

What cities are you eyeing to expand to? We’re looking at expanding in New York City, Chicago and Seattle in the next three to six months.

How do you choose which cities to enter? We have on the TaskRabbit website an interactive map where people can request. New York City is the highest-requested market.

What is needed when you expand? Once we have founding TaskRabbits involved who we have vetted, recruited and engaged, we empower them to go out. It’s a very absolute word-of-mouth process. We are basically looking for entrepreneurs in these cities who will help us start TaskRabbit in those locations. People who will innovate, collaborate and have knowledge of the city.

We also have partnerships in place. Zipcar is a great partner of ours. We’re usually in a city with Zipcar, and we do events with Zipcar. Here in San Francisco, we also have a great partner Laundry Locker, a dry-cleaning service. We do a lot of events with it. Its customers are looking for convenience, and there’s a lot of synergy.

Craigslist also offers an array of services. Why do people choose to use TaskRabbit? At TaskRabbit, we’re really focused on trust, safety and security. We’ve built in all types of security components. We have a reputation engine where TaskRabbits earn badges and points — all community driven. You look at the profile of the task rabbit and his or her reputation. We also have a vetting process in place — 100% of the TaskRabbit network goes through a vetting process that includes an online application, video interview or phone screen and series of background checks. By the time they are activated, it takes three to five days to go through. They work really hard to become a TaskRabbit.

I used this service to assemble IKEA furniture. What are the most popular tasks requests? IKEA furniture [assembly] is a really popular one. We see that one posted a lot on the site. A lot of shopping trips, grocery shopping, shopping at IKEA and picking bags of donations, bringing them to Goodwill or Salvation Army.

What are some of the more unusual requests? We have some fun and quirky things. Will you help me write a love letter and win my ex-girlfriend back? Can you help me redesign my WordPress blog? Gardening tasks, especially in the summer.

One of our more funny stories — the name of the task was: Help me prank my officemate. A TaskRabbit wrapped everything in the office in cellophane: desk, chair, everything. We ended up writing a little blog entry about it.

Any other TaskRabbit stories to share? When you first look at TaskRabbit, you think all about errands and small jobs. The platform we created has incredible underlying power. One example of this is a story of two moms. One mom in San Francisco who has a 20-year-old son in Boston. He was going through chemotherapy in Massachusetts General Hospital. She went to the TaskRabbit site and posted a task to have someone in Boston go visit her son everyday and bring a healthy meal, blanket and call her afterward to give her an update. The TaskRabbit who picked it up was another mom. The bond between the two moms was powerful and special. It goes beyond small tasks and redefines the neighbor, bringing a sense of community.